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  1. #1
    Administrator ALIPAC's Avatar
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    Emails reveal Justice Dept. regularly enlists Media Matters to spin press

    Published: 12:56 AM 09/18/2012


    By Matthew Boyle


    The Daily Caller




    LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL - JUNE 28: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder addresses 83rd LULAC National Convention on June 28, 2012 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The House of Representatives will vote today on a contempt of Congress charge against Holder. (Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)




    Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency.
    Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request. (RELATED: TheDC’s complete coverage of Media Matters)
    Emails sent in September and November 2010 show Schmaler working with Media Matters staffer Jeremy Holden on attacking news coverage of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal.
    Holden attacked former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky on Sept. 20, 2010 for what he called an attempt “to reignite the phony New Black Panther Party scandal.”
    Before Holden posted his article at 7:52 p.m., Schmaler sent him several emails with information helping him attack both former DOJ oficials.
    “Here’s one Wolf letter,” read the subject of one email Schmaler sent Holden that contained no text. The email was likely a reference to Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, a member of Congress who led the Republican charge on the New Black Panther Party scandal involving alleged voter intimidation at a November 2008 polling place in Philadelphia.
    In response, Holden told Schmaler that “The response to interog 38 is particularly helpful. Thanks!”




    Interrogatory 38 was a reference to a question from Congress that the Justice Department answered, concerning the role of several senior officials in discussing litigation related to that voter intimidation case.


    A follow-up email shows Schmaler sending Holden more information.

    “[H]ere’s another one to Smith,” Schmaler wrote. “[I]t’s about perrelli contact with w. WH. helpful in that it makes clear perrelli didn’t have discussions w/ WH on the case (obviously confirming he knew of it) … but also illustrates [REDACTED] they’ve tried to throw up that won’t stick[.]”


    Holden responded at 8:34 p.m. — three hours after Schmaler sent her first email at 5:34 — to say, “Post is live, FWIW [for what it's worth]. Thanks again.”


    Nearly two months later, on Nov. 18, 2010, Holden wrote a new blog post he described as an “EXCLUSIVE,” titled “Right-wing commission to vote on flawed New Black Panthers report.”


    “The conservative-dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will vote Friday on an interim report that omits critical evidence disproving allegations that the Obama administration refuses to enforce voting-rights laws against racial minorities, according to Media Matters’ analysis of a copy of the report we obtained,” Holden wrote in the Nov. 18 article.


    Holden attacked Adams again, and Christopher Coates — another now-former DOJ attorney.


    After Holden published that piece, Schmaler sent him an email titled “Great piece…” and continuing in the body of the message, “On USCCR investigation.’” One minute later, Holden responded, writing, “Thanks!”


    At 9:50 a.m. on July 8, 2011, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote to Schmaler asking for her help “debunking what I think is a conservative media myth about Operation Fast and Furious.” (SOURCE: DOJ’s anti-Gallup ‘whistleblower’ made bizarre work requests, said he was a ‘devout Marxist’)


    Gertz told Schmaler that “Xochitl directed me to you as the person to talk to.” Gertz was referring to Xochitl Hinojosa, a DOJ spokeswoman and former Media Matters staffer.


    “Several media outlets, including Fox News this morning, are claiming that Fast and Furious was paid for with stimulus dollars,” Gertz wrote to Schmaler. “My research suggests that this is not true, and I was hoping you’d be able to confirm that.”
    Gertz added that he needed a response “by 1 p.m.” because he thought the issue was “likely to snowball if it isn’t stopped.”
    In less than two hours, Schmaler responded with an answer from her “budget folks” in DOJ. “You’re right,” she told Gertz, before explaining why she thought so.
    At 1:13 p.m., Gertz responded, writing, “Thanks again for your help, here’s the piece” and adding a link to his online article.
    An email chain from Sept. 9, 2011, shows Gertz and Schmaler expressing concern over an upcoming Fox News segment on Fast and Furious.
    “This is Vanderboegh, who broke the story in the first place and has contacts in the media and at [the House] Oversight [commission]. Any idea what it’s about?” Gertz wrote to Schmaler at 8:29 a.m. that day in an email that quoted conservative blogger Mike Vanderboegh’s website: “FOX Got ‘Em. Huge Gunwalker Story Breaking Later This Morning.”
    At 9:19 a.m., Schmaler replied: “So far, no one’s got an idea … unless it’s something that’s already been out. Let’s stay in touch…”


    Gertz responded at 9:25 a.m. with a guess that if it were something that had already been out, it would have been a story on Indiana gun sales.


    Fox News played its tease shortly after of a segment promising new information on Fast and Furious, and at 10:18 a.m. Gertz sent the text of Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer’s tease to Schmaler.


    “Also two weapons found at the scene where Border Agent Brian, uh, Terry was murdered linked to a botched federal gunrunning sting operation, and today the plot thickens once again,” Gertz quoted Hemmer as saying.

    Eight minutes later, Schmaler wrote a terse “??” back to Gertz, likely indicating that she did not understand Hemmer’s statement.
    Seconds after receiving Schmaler’s reply, Gertz responded, “No idea. Will let you know when the segment happens.”
    Schmaler then praised Gertz for monitoring the situation: “Thanks Matt,” she replied.
    In two subsequent emails, Gertz told the DOJ public affairs director what happened. The “[c]laim is [that] there was a third gun at the Terry murder scene that was covered up because it was procured by an FBI informant inside the Sinaloa cartel,” Gertz wrote to Schmaler in one message. The other email included the full text of Fox News reporter William LaJeunesse’s article on the matter.
    In a Jan. 31, 2012, email chain titled “per our conversation,” Schmaler and Gertz are seen cooperating on an article attacking House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa. At 12:18 p.m. that day, Schmaler sent Gertz two paragraphs of text from Issa’s comments during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 8, 2011. Schmaler underlined a portion of the text in those paragraphs in which Issa discussed the differences between Fast and Furious and similar — but different in crucial respects — programs from the George W. Bush administration.
    “The difference in the previous administration is there was coordination with the Mexican government,” Schmaler quoted Issa as saying in her email to Gertz. “They made a real effort under [Operation] Wide Receiver [in the George W. Bush administration] to pass off a small amount of weapons and track them. This program [Fast and Furious], just the opposite. Even knowing the drug cartels that were going to receive them, they simply allowed them to go to the stash house.”
    Just hours after Schmaler sent Gertz that highlighted Issa quote, it appeared in a Media Matters article titled “Rep. Issa Ties Himself In Fast And Furious Knots.” Gertz wrote the piece for Media Matters Action Network’s “Political Correction” blog.
    In his article, Gertz referenced a just-released Democratic House oversight committee staff report that he said concluded “there is no evidence that senior officials in the Obama Department of Justice authorized gunwalking in that case.”
    Gertz chastised Issa, who had pointed out that morning on Fox News how DOJ and congressional Democrats were inconsistent about how Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer “was still a believer in Fast and Furious and programs like it” on Feb. 4, 2011.
    Issa pointed out that that date was the same day the DOJ sent a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley falsely denying gunwalking was going on — a letter the DOJ withdrew months later.
    “Note Issa’s very slippery use of the phrase ‘Fast and Furious and programs like it,’” Gertz told his readers.
    Schmaler reached out to Gertz on March 12, 2012 seemingly to suggest an article attacking Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips for his public comments about Operation Fast and Furious. At the time, Phillips was pressing GOP leadership to take action on the gunwalking scandal. During a Fox News interview, Phillips said Fast and Furious “should be investigated, but we also have to remember the program itself was a partisan program.”
    “This was never a law enforcement sting, as you described it earlier. This was purely a political operation,” Phillips added during the Fox segment.
    “You send the guns down to Mexico, therefore you support the political narrative that the Obama administration wanted supported; that all these American guns are flooding Mexico; that they’re the cause of the violence in Mexico and therefore we need draconian gun control laws here in America. So because the whole operation itself was political, yes, by all means Congress should be all over this.”
    Schmaler obtained a transcript of Phillips’ whole broadcast segment and sent it to Gertz in an 11:55 a.m. email on March 12, asking, “You see this?”


    “[C]ompletely false,” Schmaler wrote of Phillips’ allegation. “[W]ide receiver and Hernandez put this to a lie. There’s been lots of coverage on previous bush operations…”
    “Thanks,” Gertz responded one minute later.
    “Hernandez” was a reference to Fidel Hernandez, the subject of DOJ’s first – and failed — attempt to direct a “controlled delivery of weapons” across the Mexican border by arms traffickers for the purpose of tracking them to their eventual destination.
    At 4:05 p.m. the same day Gertz and Schmaler were emailing about Judson Phillips, Media Matters’ Chris Brown wrote a blog entry attacking Phillips for his televised appearance.
    “Not surprisingly, Phillips spent the interview promoting the right-wing conspiracy theory that Fast and Furious was a plot to promote gun control instead of a failed law enforcement investigation,” Brown wrote, adding a mention of what Schmaler had emailed: “Further, Phillips refers to Fast and Furious as a ‘partisan program’ despite the fact that Bush-era investigations featured similar ‘gun walking’ tactics as those used in Fast and Furious.”
    Seven minutes after Brown’s blog post appeared online, Gertz sent the full text in an email to Schmaler with the headline, “FYI.”
    Schmaler had a new request for Gertz on March 20, 2012. ”Got time for a call?” the DOJ’s top communications official wrote to the progressive activist at 2:20 p.m.
    Ads by Google


    Eleven minutes later, Gertz responded, writing, “Got blocks between 10:30 and noon and between 2 and 4.”
    It’s unclear what they spoke about. But Gertz wrote significant amounts of material thereafter defending the slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and attacking the National Rifle Association and “stand your ground” laws.
    Other than two blog posts he wrote in the days immediately before the email setting up a phone call with Schmaler, Gertz had not written much about the story of the black teenager shot by a Hispanic man in Sanford, Fla on Feb. 26. The DOJ had announced on March 19 that it was launching its own investigation into the Martin case.
    Throughout the email exchanges TheDC obtained through the FOIA request are numerous examples of Gertz and other Media Matters staff sending the full text of Media Matters blog entries attacking the DOJ’s political opponents in the media.
    Among others, Gertz sent Schmaler attack pieces he wrote about Townhall Magazine’s Katie Pavlich, who also authored a book on Operation Fast and Furious; Breitbart.com writers Joel Pollak and Ken Klukowski; Fox News Channel’s William LaJeunesse, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Bill Hemmer, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity; Sipsey Street Irregulars blogger Mike Vanderboegh; DirectorBlue blogger Doug Ross; National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy; and this reporter.
    TheDC filed its FOIA request on Dec. 4, 2011 and the Department of Justice acknowledged receiving it a day later. The request, however, was not fulfilled until Aug. 30, 2012 — far outside the 20-business-day limit to fulfill a FOIA request under the law. TheDC was not given any notification of a time extension in the months this request sat before DOJ acted on it.
    The DOJ’s own published guidelines for responding to FOIA requests state that ”[u]nder the law, all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days, unless there are ‘unusual circumstances.’” Those circumstances, the DOJ writes, include the need to collect records from field offices, a request involving a “voluminous” amount of records, and the need ”to consult with another federal agency or other Department of Justice components that have a substantial interest in the responsive information.”
    Neither Media Matters’ spokeswoman nor Schmaler replied to TheDC’s requests for comment.
    Last edited by ALIPAC; 09-18-2012 at 10:40 PM.
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  2. #2
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    No Big Deal? It is sad to think that they don't seem to know the difference between doing the business of ALL of the people instead of a selected few and dirty business.JMO

    Fox News: Justice Dept. thinks its collaboration with Media Matters ‘not a big deal’

    09/18/2012 By Matthew Boyle

    The DepartmentofJustice continues to ignore requests for comment in response to the revelation its Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler has coordinated with left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America, and is sending signals to at least one media organization that the cabinet agency doesn’t believe the collaboration has great significance.

    “We have reached out to the Justice Department for some comment on this,” Fox News Channel anchor Jon Scott said on the air Tuesday morning. “Officially, they are not commenting about it — ‘no comment’ — although they are essentially saying, off the record, that it is not a big deal.”

    Emails The Daily Caller obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and published Tuesday show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals.

    Schmaler and the DOJ have ignored TheDC’s requests for comment on the matter since before the first piece was published. She has also ignored TheDC’s requests asking her to confirm that the DOJ doesn’t think her apparent partnership with Media Matters is a “big deal.”
    Media Matters spokeswoman Jess Levin has also ignored requests for comment from TheDC about this story.

    Fox News’ James Rosen reported Tuesday afternoon that “a spokesman for Media Matters told me the group would comment only if it was offered a chance to appear live on this network, which is a request this reporter was in no position to grant.”

    Levin has ignored follow-up requests from TheDC, including requests to confirm Media Matters threatened that it would only comment live and on the air.


    Schmaler may find herself under investigation as a result of these revelations. American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow said on Fox News that the DOJ’s internal Office of Professional Responsibility could probe whether she engaged in unethical behavior or misconduct.

    “They [Media Matters workers] get the e-mail praising them for the piece — whether it’s information on a hit piece on a former DOJ employee,” Sekulow said. “They [DOJ] have an Office of Professional Responsibility, and I don’t know if Tracy’s a lawyer or not a lawyer, but I will tell you this, the Office of Professional Responsibility should be looking at this because the idea that the Department of Justice is using Media Matters as its proxy — as its front group or its outside, unpaid consultant — to do this is outrageous.”

    “And when professional ethics are involved, which raises a serious issue here — and media journalism ethics: the idea that you’re planting stories with Media Matters or giving them information to go after former employees of DOJ, that is over the top and needs to be seriously investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility inside the DOJ.”
    Sekulow suggested Holder also may have approved or encouraged Schmaler’s apparently improper behavior.

    “Does it go to Eric Holder?” Sekulow asked. “I mean, who knows, you know?”

    “I suspect between now and the election we probably don’t find out. But there are people looking at this now, and I think as long as we stay on it, we need to demand an answer to that. Why is it that Media Matters gets a special relationship with the United States Department of Justice? Somebody needs to be asking that question.”

    Schmaler has also ignored TheDC’s requests for comment on whether the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be looking into her collaboration with Media Matters.


    Read more: Justice: Collaboration Media Matters 'not a big deal': Rpt | The Daily Caller
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  3. #3
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    September 20, 2012




    Resignation calls fly at Justice Dept. spokeswoman over Media Matters collaboration

    09/20/2012

    By
    Matthew Boyle/The Daily Caller


    Several targets of a collaborative relationship between Justice Department Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler and the liberal message group Media Matters for America told The Daily Caller that Schmaler’s conduct is grounds for her resignation, or for the termination of her employment.

    And members of Congress have told TheDC that Media Matters’ enviable tax-exempt status may be in jeopardy as a result of that collusion.

    Emails TheDC obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show Schmaler — Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press defender — and Media Matters staffers workingtogether to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals and other administration critics.

    (RELATED: Emails reveal Justice Dept. regularly enlists Media Matters to spin press)

    One target of Media Matters and Schmaler, now-former DOJ attorney Chris Coates, told TheDC he thinks Schmaler should step down. “I think that a resignation would be in order from her,” Coates said in a phone interview.

    Coates was still a DOJ employee when Schmaler worked with Media Matters in the fall of 2010 to attack him. He was at one time the chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Rights Section, a high-ranking position for a civil servant who was not politically appointed.

    While Schmaler and Media Matters collaborated to attack Coates’ reputation, he was prosecuting cases for the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Carolina.

    “I do find it unusual that apparently during the time that I was prosecuting criminal cases in South Carolina for the Department of Justice, the Department’s press spokesman was clandestinely providing information to chosen media outlets to try to defame me,” Coates told TheDC.

    “Some of that information was false.”

    Coates left the DOJ in May 2011 and is now in private practice in South Carolina. But during his tenure at the Justice Department, he was actively involved in a voter intimidation case targeting the New Black Panther Party. A scandal erupted when DOJ dismissed the case, despite videotaped evidence of alleged voter intimidation at a November 2008 polling place in Philadelphia.

    The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, also a former DOJ official targeted by Schmaler and Media Matters, told TheDC he agrees Schmaler should resign.

    “The President and Attorney General Holder should be embarrassed over such behavior by one of their political appointees,” von Spakovsky said in an email. ”Tracy Schmaler must resign immediately. Holder’s failure to ask for her resignation will be confirmation that he approved of her unethical, unprofessional, and undemocratic behavior.”

    Of the Justice Department’s coordination with Media Matters to bash his reputation, von Spakovsky said the administration’s behavior seems dictatorial.

    “I know from my family’s personal experience that it is dictatorships and third world banana republics that use the machinery of government to attack their critics,” he wrote. “It is both shameful and shocking that such thuggish behavior has gone on at the U.S. Department of Justice where I formerly worked.”

    Fellow DOJ official and Media Matters-DOJ target J. Christian Adams echoed von Spakovsky and Coates and demand Schmaler’s termination. “DOJ employees who use their high paying job to falsely attack people should not have high paying jobs,” Adams told TheDC. “Her behavior isn’t worthy of being a public servant.”

    Another target, Townhall magazine news editor Katie Pavlich, said Schmaler should resign or be fired. Schmaler, she said, should also be “investigated for violating the Whistleblower Protection Act by using Media Matters to retaliate against Adams and Coates.”

    Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks told TheDC that Schmaler’s conduct is indicative of the Obama administration’s efforts to distract the public and attack critics in the face of Operation Fast and Furious, and other agency scandals.

    (RELATED: Fox News: Justice Dept. thinks its collaboration with Media Matters ‘not a big deal’)

    “When the truth isn’t on one’s side — and it isn’t on the Administration’s side, as it pertains to Operation Fast and Furious — one has a limited number of options: face the truth or attempt to suppress it,” Franks said in an email.
    “This Administration has, perhaps unsurprisingly, chosen the latter. Attacking whistleblowers, including veteran Department employees, is not conduct befitting of the United States Justice Department, and raises serious questions about Ms. Schmaler’s ability to adequately perform her professional duties, as well as questions about whether she acted under the orders of her superiors.”

    Franks said revelations in the collection of emails TheDC published Tuesday should lead Congress to investigate whether Media Matters is eligible to continue operating under the tax-exempt status it currently enjoys.

    “The briefest survey of Media Matters’ website makes it clear the organization has a firm commitment to advancing a narrative that benefits President Obama’s campaign,” Franks said. “Between the consistent slant of the site’s ‘research’ and recent stories indicating the organization worked directly with the Obama Administration to actively target reporters who dared criticize the Administration’s disgracefully botched handling of Operation Fast and Furious, an investigation into Media Matters’ 501(c)(3) status is more than warranted.”

    Arizona Republican Rep. Ben Quayle echoed Franks’ concerns about the DOJ’s coordination with Media Matters.
    “This administration — they’re propagandists,” Quayle said in a phone interview. “They try to use their allies within the media, and knowing that Media Matters does have a tremendous amount of sway within the liberal media — because, many times, anchors are just reading reports coming off Media Matters — they’re using it as a way of intimidation.”
    “Does this violate any whistleblower protection laws that are out there?” Quayle asked. ”I think this is a very serious matter that needs to be investigated.”

    “Another thing I think that needs to be talked about is, ‘How does Media Matters justify their 501(c)3 status right now?’” Quayle added.

    Tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which Media Matters enjoys, allows its donors to claim income-tax deductions for their contributions, and also exempts Media Matters itself from paying federal tax on its income. That status is typically reserved for organizations that don’t engage in excessive partisan politicking.

    (RELATED: TheDC’s complete coverage of Media Matters)

    But Quayle insisted that Media Matters is ”overtly partisan and political. I think it [Congress] definitely should investigate it and I hope the folks at [the House] oversight [committee] start to look into it. Because when you’re having a tax-exempt organization being able to be just a partisan hack for the administration, I think that’s not what their status is supposed to be used for.”

    He added that “there should be an investigation” of Schmaler’s conduct “to see if any laws have been violated via the intimidation of whistleblowers and news entities.”

    The Obama administration, he continued, is “not acting in their government capacity, they’re acting in a political capacity at all times.”

    “Take, for instance, how Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act and how she hasn’t been held accountable for that. Again, in this instance, you have a DOJ official using taxpayer resources to try to smear whistleblowers. And this is definitely, from a political point of view, to try to protect the administration from any negative publicity that might occur from these allegations.”
    “There needs to be a bright line between official capacity and political capacity,” Quayle said. “That is always, it seems with this administration, completely blurred and totally combined into one thing.”

    Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar said the coordination between Media Matters and DOJ is “egregious.” Pointing to a DOJ inspector general report on Operation Fast and Furious released Wednesday, Gosar said Schmaler’s email trail “shows, once again, along with this report, that higher-ups in Justice were trying to diffuse the message that was coming out properly by The Daily Caller, by Fox News, by key Republicans, by the Oversight Committee, and others.”
    Gosar also wants an investigation into coordination by Media Matters and the DOJ.

    Read more:Resignation calls fly at Justice Dept. spokeswoman | The Daily Caller

    Read: Hans von Spakovky series Every Single One.
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  4. #4
    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Among others, Gertz sent Schmaler attack pieces he wrote about Townhall Magazine’s Katie Pavlich, who also authored a book on Operation Fast and Furious; Breitbart.com writers Joel Pollak and Ken Klukowski; Fox News Channel’s William LaJeunesse, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Bill Hemmer, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity;Sipsey Street Irregulars blogger Mike Vanderboegh; DirectorBlue blogger Doug Ross; National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy; and this reporter.
    Mike Vanderbough and David Codrea filed a complaint to the DC Bar against Eric Holder in July 2012 asking to have Holder disbarred.
    Sipsey Street Exclusive: Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea file ethics complaint on Eric Holder with the D.C. Bar!


    Sipsey Street Irregulars: Sipsey Street Exclusive: Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea file ethics complaint on Eric Holder with the D.C. Bar!
    Mike Vanderbough of Sipsey Street Irregulars weighs in on the collusion of the DOJ and Media Matters.

    Nice to know the Gunwalker criminals are paying attention. White House email: “This is Vanderboegh, who broke the story in the first place and has contacts in the media and at Oversight. Any idea what it’s about?”

    Tracy Schmaler is a name which may grow into a household one as the lies surrounding Fast and Furious unravel faster. She earned her stripes deceiving the public about the dismissal of the New Black Panther case. She then graduated onto attacking one of the most honorable people to serve in government, former Voting Section Chief Chris Coates, after he (under oath no less) exposed her lies about the Black Panther dismissal for what they were. Schmaler is also the same hack who disgraces the Department of Justice by criticizing decisions the Department made, but only because the Bush administration made them. She is the witchy federal employee who screams and cusses at reporters for NBC, the Washington Times, CBS and the American Spectator, yet doesn’t get fired because thug is so in style in this administration.

    But her latest false witness involves the esteemed senator from Iowa. On Halloween, a document dump was unloaded on Congress which revealed a concerted DOJ effort to smear Senator Grassley as a partisan to the media in the Fast and Furious scandal. Schmaler is almost certainly at the center of this effort. She is notorious for this sort of behavior — leaking certain documents to certain young hack bloggers who parrot whatever she demands of them.
    Again, who is Tracy Schmaler? Remember the name, because she may be the engineer behind so many of the lies emanating from the once honorable United States Department of Justice. It’s time she be hauled before the committees investigating DOJ misconduct.
    But you won’t be able to serve that subpoena this week. This week she is on a tropical island, and you are paying for it.

    "I'll get you my pretty, and your little blog too!"

    Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency.

    Dozens of pages of emails between DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers show Schmaler, Holder’s top press defender, working with Media Matters to attack reporters covering DOJ scandals. TheDC obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

    Media Matters, you may recall, is the George Soros' funded hit squad that, in addition to being a gaggle of White House myrmidons, also writes a lot of MSNBC's copy, especially Rachel Madcow's. And defecate and shove me in it, but it is yours truly who pops up in at least one of these emails.

    An email chain from Sept. 9, 2011, shows Gertz and Schmaler expressing concern over an upcoming Fox News segment on Fast and Furious.

    “This is Vanderboegh, who broke the story in the first place and has contacts in the media and at [the House] Oversight [commission]. Any idea what it’s about?” Gertz wrote to Schmaler at 8:29 a.m. that day in an email that quoted conservative blogger Mike Vanderboegh’s website: “FOX Got ‘Em. Huge Gunwalker Story Breaking Later This Morning.”
    At 9:19 a.m., Schmaler replied: “So far, no one’s got an idea … unless it’s something that’s already been out. Let’s stay in touch…”
    Gertz responded at 9:25 a.m. with a guess that if it were something that had already been out, it would have been a story on Indiana gun sales.
    Fox News played its tease shortly after of a segment promising new information on Fast and Furious, and at 10:18 a.m. Gertz sent the text of Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer’s tease to Schmaler.
    “Also two weapons found at the scene where Border Agent Brian, uh, Terry was murdered linked to a botched federal gunrunning sting operation, and today the plot thickens once again,” Gertz quoted Hemmer as saying.
    Eight minutes later, Schmaler wrote a terse “??” back to Gertz, likely indicating that she did not understand Hemmer’s statement.
    Seconds after receiving Schmaler’s reply, Gertz responded, “No idea. Will let you know when the segment happens.”
    Schmaler then praised Gertz for monitoring the situation: “Thanks Matt,” she replied.
    In two subsequent emails, Gertz told the DOJ public affairs director what happened. The “[c]laim is [that] there was a third gun at the Terry murder scene that was covered up because it was procured by an FBI informant inside the Sinaloa cartel,” Gertz wrote to Schmaler in one message. The other email included the full text of Fox News reporter William LaJeunesse’s article on the matter.

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  5. #5
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    Rep. Trey Gowdy: ‘I promise you, we are going to have a nice, full public hearing’ on Media Matters, DOJ collusion


    Published: 3:59 PM 09/22/2012
    By Matthew Boyle/Daily Caller

    Appearing on NRA News’ “The Daily News with Ginny Simone,” South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said hearings are planned concerning the Department of Justice’s use of taxpayer resources to smear its critics by colluding with left-wing advocacy organization Media Matters for America.

    Gowdy’s promise of hearings comes after The Daily Caller this week published a series of emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that show the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler and Media Matters staffers working together to attack reporters covering Justice Department scandals and other administration critics.

    “My guess is, this won’t be the last we hear about that,” Gowdy said when Simone first asked him to respond to the news of their collusion. “[House oversight committee chairman Darrell] Issa is the chairman, and he can do what he wants.”
    Issa has already said the coordination demonstrates that President Barack Obama has an “enemies list,” just like former President Richard Nixon.

    “Not since Richard Nixon have we seen a president who puts together an enemies list and has a whole team pursuing it,” Issa said this week on Fox News. “That’s what’s happened in this administration. It’s sad. It’s not the America I want to see going forward. I sincerely hope that after the election, regardless, the American people will have made a statement that they won’t tolerate this.”

    Issa also said he expects Congress to start digging into this issue and look into whether advocacy organizations masquerading as fair nonprofits, like Media Matters for America, might lose their tax-exempt status. Victims of the collusion have openly called for Schmaler to lose her job.

    Tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which Media Matters enjoys, allows its donors to claim income-tax deductions for their contributions, and also exempts Media Matters itself from paying federal tax on its income. That status is typically reserved for organizations that don’t engage in excessive partisan politicking.

    Gowdy told Simone that he’s “delighted to know they [the DOJ] took time away from suing my home state of South Carolina to do something other than plan their next lawsuit. But, I’m very disappointed that they took time away to try to coordinate with the media on how to embarrass some of us who have been critical of them.”

    “I promise you, we are going to have a nice, full public hearing on that [the collusion between Media Matters and DOJ],” Gowdy added.

    Read more: Rep. Trey Gowdy:



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  6. #6
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    This may get very interesting, and yet, maybe not much will come from it other than someone will take the fall for it and/or be a sacrificial lamb.
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    HOLDER FLACK, DOJ SPOKESWOMAN RESIGNS FROM DOJ

    by MATTHEW BOYLE
    15 Feb 2013

    Tracy Schmaler, Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press defender, will resign her position on March 8. This reporter recently caught Schmaler colluding with far leftwing advocacy organization Media Matters for America to attack the reputations of whistleblowers, members of Congress, and people in the new media.

    People who were targets of the collusion between Department of Justice press aide Schmaler and far leftwing advocacy organizations called for her resignation in September 2012, when evidence of her activity emerged. Now, they are getting their wish.

    Emails uncovered last year show Schmaler worked with Media Matters to smear people trying to uncover details about Justice Department scandals.

    As far back as 2010, Schmaler worked with the George Soros-funded media hit squad to attempt to defame whistleblowers from the New Black Panther Party scandal with regard alleged voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place on election day in 2008.

    Schmaler worked with Media Matters’ Jeremy Holden to smear former DOJ Civil Rights division attorneys J. Christian Adams and Hans Von Spakovsky in 2010. She also worked to smear now-former Civil Rights division attorney Christopher Coates, who was an active employee of the Department of Justice at the time.

    In 2011, Schmaler took over as Holder’s top press aide when Matt Miller left the DOJ. (Miller has since been hired by embattled New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez). When she took over, the scandal surrounding Operation Fast and Furious began heating up.

    Schmaler turned to her friends at the advocacy organization Media Matters for help again. Over the coming years, emails show she colluded to smear House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and other lawmakers; Fox News’ William LaJeunesse, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Bill Hemmer, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity; this reporter, who at the time worked for The Daily Caller; Townhall Magazine’s Katie Pavlich; Breitbart News editor Joel Pollak and writer Ken Klukowski, among others; Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips; National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney; and many other including bloggers who have covered the story from the very beginning.

    After this reporter uncovered those emails while writing for The Daily Caller in September, Issa described those who were targeted by Schmaler and Holder via their collusion with Media Matters as President Barack Obama’s “enemies list.”

    “Not since Richard Nixon have we seen a president who puts together an enemies list and has a whole team pursuing it,” Issa said about the collusion. “That’s what’s happened in this administration. It’s sad. It’s not the America I want to see going forward. I sincerely hope that after the election, regardless, the American people will have made a statement that they won’t tolerate this.”

    Issa ally South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy promised, too, that there would be a congressional hearing on Schmaler’s and Holder’s collusion with groups like Media Matters. A hearing date has not yet been set, but Schmaler’s decision to resign from the DOJ may be an effort to avoid having to answer to Congress about her behavior.

    Schmaler has not answered when asked by Breitbart News whether her resignation has anything to do with the coming hearings on DOJ collusion with groups like Media Matters.

    Even though she’s resigning, Holder still spoke highly of Schmaler. "While I am sad to lose one of my closest and most trusted advisors, I am grateful to Tracy for her wise counsel, loyalty, good humor and unwavering support of me and the Justice Department over the last four years," Holder said in a statement. “Tracy has been a valued member of my senior staff and a good friend whose tireless spirit and keen judgment have served me and this Department well. She will be truly missed, though I wish her all the best in her future endeavors.”

    Schmaler is expected to take a job working for David Axelrod.


    Holder Flack, DOJ Spokeswoman Resigns from DOJ


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